3 COPING WITH GLOBALISATION AN ANALYSIS OF INNOVATION CAPABILITY IN BRAZILIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY # Abstract Sunil Mani Brazil is one of the only three and the first one from the developing world to initiate and maintain innovation capability especially in the switching equipment component of the telecommunications equipment industry. The maintenance of this capability has come under some strain with the increasing external integration of the Brazilian telecommunications economy. Employing a sectoral system of innovation perspective the paper undertakes a comprehensive evaluation of the efforts made by various components of the innovation system, and especially the research and policy-making parts, to maintain this capability. The ensuing analysis shows that the innovation system is learning to cope with changes in its external environment in a bid to maintain existing capability and has even managed to enhance capability in areas such as manufacturing and marketing. In order to cope with globalisation the Brazilian State has put in place a selected number of legal and fiscal instruments of state support. However the very process of globalisation threatens to vitiate or nullify the positive effects of these instruments. Key words : Innovation capability, Brazil, telecommunications, CPqD, public technology procurement JEL Codes: L630, O310, O320, UNU-INTECH Discussion Papers ISSN Copyright 2002 The United Nations University, Institute for New Technologies, UNU- INTECH UNU-INTECH discussion papers intend to disseminate preliminary results of the research carried out at the institute to attract comments # This paper is part of a larger UNU-INTECH research project ( ) analysing the innovation capability of the telecommunications equipment industry in four developing countries namely Brazil, China, India, and Korea. I am grateful to Lynn Mytelka for giving me the opportunity to work on this interesting research project. Excellent logistical support was provided by my colleagues Lea Velho, Marcia da Mota Daros and Enzo Ciarnella. The field research in Brazil was facilitated by a number of colleagues and I am thankful in particular to Robert Shaw, Jose Alexandre Bicalho, Helio Marcos Machado Graciosa, Joao Carlos Fagundes Albernaz, and Marcio Wohlers. Comments provided by Jeffrey James, Helio Marcos Machado Graciosa and an anonymous referee have been most helpful in polishing the arguments. But none of them are to be implicated for any errors or shortcomings that may still remain in the paper: the views expressed in the paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. 3

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5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0. INTRODUCTION PAST LITERATURE AND FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS MAIN FEATURES OF THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SECTOR 19 I) GROWTH OF INVESTMENT AND CAPACITY IN FIXED TELEPHONES 21 II) EXCESS CAPACITY 21 III) TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE NETWORK 25 (IV) STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY PRIVATISATION OF TELECOM SERVICES AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY INNOVATION SYSTEM AND ITS PERFORMANCE: POST PRIVATISATION 39 A) INDEX OF INNOVATION CAPABILITY 39 B) INNOVATION SYSTEM IN THE POST PRIVATISATION PHASE: LEARNING TO ADJUST INSTRUMENTS OF STATE SUPPORT 55 I) LEGAL INSTRUMENTS FACILITATING PUBLIC TECHNOLOGY PROCUREMENT IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 55 (II) FISCAL INSTRUMENTS FOR PROMOTING R&D SUMMING UP 69 REFERENCES 73 THE UNU-INTECH DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES 77

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7 1.0. INTRODUCTION Brazil has one of the largest telecommunications sectors in Latin America. It has both a distribution of telecommunications services and a manufacturing of telecommunications equipment sector as well. In terms of its share in total telecoms revenues the distribution sector accounts for about 74 per cent while the manufacturing of telecommunications equipment and software accounts for the remaining 26 per cent (Anuario Telecom, various issues). Brazil is also one of the few developing countries that have established a stand-alone public laboratory for the generation of telecommunications technologies consistent with the usage pattern and other specificities obtaining in the country. The telecommunications sector has undergone a major change in the 1990s. The main dimensions of this change are the opening up of the manufacturing sector to further foreign investments; 1 opening of the mobile sector to competition in 1997; 2 the creation of a regulatory agency known as Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (ANATEL) in 1997; privatisation of fixed line services in and the transformation of the public research laboratory to a private foundation, also in These changes are radically altering the landscape of the telecommunications sector in the country. The performance of the telecommunications sector in Brazil has attracted considerable scrutiny from a number of commentators. Much of the recent analysis has naturally focused on the privatisation of telecom distribution segment. 4 Brazil s telecom privatisation is considered to be the largest in the developing world and third largest in the world (See Table 1). 1 Right through the 1950s, there were affiliates of MNCs operating in the telecommunications equipment manufacturing industry. 2 During the year companies were licensed to provide B- band cellular services in 10 regions, in competition with the Telebras A band cellular operators. 3 Prior to its privatisation in July 1998, the state-owned Telebras acted as a holding company for 28 operating companies: one long distance operator (Embratel), which also provided telex and data communications services, and 27 companies which provided local, inter-state long distance, and mobile communications services at the state level. Four independent telephone companies provided services outside the Telebras system, in specific geographic areas, accounting for 9 per cent of all lines in service. 4 Much of the analysis on this theme is by Brazilian scholars writing in Portuguese. For an important work in English, see Wholers and de Fontenay (2000). 7

8 Table 1: Top ten telecom privatisation proceeds, world-wide Operating company (Country) Privatisation proceeds(millions of US $) 1. NTT(Japan) BT (UK) Telebras (Brazil) France Telecom (France) Deutsche Telecom (Germany) Telecom Italia(Italy) Telstra (Australia) TelMex (Mexico) TeleDanmark (Denmark) Swiscom (Switzerland) 5580 Source: Kelly (1999) Three factors distinguish Brazil s telecom privatisation process from that of other developing countries: first, privatisation took place much later; second, the government sought and facilitated competition rather than a straight exchange of public to private monopoly (Wohlers and de Fontenay, 2000) and; third, the privatisation proceeds of US $19 billion far exceeded the government's target of US $14 billion. Against this background, the present study focuses on the movements in innovation capability of the telecommunications equipment industry in the country especially during the post liberalisation/privatisation phase after a period that has seen the growing globalisation of the country s economy. Countries across the world and especially those in developed countries have used public technology procurement as an instrument of state support for building up innovation capability in telecommunications equipment industry (Edquist, Hommen and Tsipouri, 1999). Brazil too has used this instrument to build up its capability. Brazil was also the first among a group of three developing countries to establish a dedicated public research laboratory 5 devoted to telecommunications R&D. However the importance of this instrument stands considerably diminished consequent to the privatisation of operating companies, which under the umbrella of the main holding company Telebras used to account for almost the entire spectrum of telecommunications equipment manufactured in the country. Hence the objectives of the paper are two fold: (i) to map out the movements in the innovation capability of the domestic telecommunications equipment industry 6 ; and (ii) to identify the main instruments of state 5 The other two are India and Korea. India established its telecom R&D lab, C-DOT in 1984 and Korea established its lab, ETRI in For a detailed assessment of the progress of India's innovation capability in telecommunications equipment industry in general and C-DOT in particular, see Mani (1992, 2003) and Ray (2001). The author is currently carrying out field research in the last of this group of countries, Korea. 8

9 support and its effect on the build up of this capability. The paper is structured into six sections. The first section surveys the important past studies on the theme and charts out the framework for analysis. Although most of the studies done on the issue are in Portuguese, I restrict myself to available work in English. The second section identifies the main features of the telecom sector in Brazil. A summary of the reforms and a brief assessment of their effects is presented in the third section. The fourth section maps out the structural changes in innovation system for telecommunications equipment sector, while the fifth section identifies the main instruments of state support in building up this capability. The sixth and final section summarises the main findings of the paper and compares the Brazilian experience with that of India. 7 India provides a good case for comparison because she too has followed a similar strategy of; promoting a sector system of innovation with the government research institute, generating the technology and then transferring it to private and public sector firms. Furthermore, the external environment obtaining to the innovation system in both the countries is comparable, while the instruments and strategies employed by both the systems are different. In short the Brazilian system appears to be better prepared to cope with the ill effects of globalisation than the Indian one. At the outset it is also important to tackle some specific conceptual issues. Almost all technologies are location specific. Therefore all borrowed technologies will have to be adapted to local conditions. However the location specificity of some of these technologies is such that adaptation can be very time consuming and costly and may not even be acceptable from the opportunity cost point of view. It is generally argued that telecommunications and especially switching technologies within it fall into this category of technologies that are difficult to adapt to local conditions. In fact it is this rationale that prompted a number of developing countries such as Brazil, India and Korea to initiate large government sponsored R&D projects to generate technologies consistent with the peculiarities of usage pattern prevailing in those economies. But such an initiative can run the risk of conflicting with the efforts that are being mounted by the governments of these developing countries for the rapid development of telecommunications infrastructure. My argument however, is that the inability to develop a 6 The paper employs a sectoral system of innovation perspective to analyse innovation capability. Central to the perspective are research institutes (which generate this technology) and firms (which employ the technology to manufacture and sell equipment to actual users). In the present paper I focus, by and large, on the research system and not on the firms. This is because other studies have shown that the Brazilian telecommunications equipment firms are the weakest links in the system. This point will become more evident as I continue with the analysis. In fact the public policy focus in the country has been more on the research system and not on the firms. 7 At a later stage I intend comparing the Brazilian one with the Korean and Chinese cases. Both the latter cases have been characterised by highly capable (technologically speaking) firms and therefore the innovation system, on the basis of our preliminary understanding, is better prepared to take advantage of the new opportunities provided by globalisation. 9

10 telecommunications infrastructure is primarily a function of the lack of investments in this sector and not the type of technologies that are invested in. This point will be further amplified when I present the data on growth of investments in the sector (Figure 1). 10

11 2.0. PAST LITERATURE AND FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS Previous studies on the telecommunications sector in Brazil have focused disproportionately on the manufacturing segment of the industry. There are two possible explanations for this anomaly in research interest. The first is related to the initiation of domestic technology generating efforts, which as explained earlier, was the first of its kind from anywhere in the developing world. It was generally felt, given the complexity of the technology and the well entrenched position of MNCs in the world telecommunications equipment industry, that an indigenous effort by a local public laboratory was indeed a remarkable achievement that was worth writing home about. The second reason is that it is only with the privatisation of the Telebras system in 1998 that the distribution segment has shot into prominence. At least seven major studies have been undertaken on the broad issue of the telecommunications equipment industry in Brazil. A synoptic view of these studies is presented in Table 2. By contrast, the distribution segment of the industry during the five years of privatisation 8 is, with the exception of surveys undertaken within the government machinery, still relatively uncharted territory. 8 The most important, in my view, in this category is the one by Wholers and de Fontenay (2000).

12 Table 2: Past literature* on the Brazilian Telecommunications Equipment Industry Author Main findings 1. Hobday (1986 The study examines Brazil's attempt to absorb and diffuse digital and 1990)** telecommunications technology. With the aid of the theoretical concepts developed in the study the mechanisms by which Brazil acquired and diffused the technology during the learning process are analysed. By these means the study attempts to isolate the ways in which digital technology was accumulated at the levels of R&D, firm, sector, government and macroeconomy. Lessons from the Brazilian case are drawn for other developing countries 2. Dias, Hugueney and.vianna (1989) The paper presents the genesis and summary of the R&D activities carried out at the Telebras R&D Centre (CPqD) showing its main projects and highlights the TROPICO system which is an integrated family of digital switching equipment fully conceived and developed at the CPqD facilities. 3. Graciosa (1989) Maps out the early system of innovation with respect to telecommunications research in the country. traces the evolution of organised attempts towards development of telecommunications R&D in the country and traces its history in detail from 1973 through Frischtak (1990) Maps out the structure of the telecommunications equipment manufacturing sector during the 1980s, describes the attempts by CPqD to develop the Tropico family of digital switches. 4. Goransson (1993) 4. Fiorentino (1996) Comparative study of Brazil, India and Korea with respect to the creation of local capability in designing and manufacturing electronic switching systems. Presents the situation in each of the three countries during the 1980s. Analyses the structure of the Brazilian telecommunications equipment manufacturing industry during the early part of the 1990s. Also surveys the R&D programme of CPqD during this period. 5. Mytelka (1999) Presents a comparative analysis of the design and maintenance of domestic technological capability in the Brazilian and Korean telecommunications equipment industry. The Brazilian case is discussed up to the early 1990s. 6. Schjolden (1999) Analyses the movements in technological capability of the Brazilian telecommunications equipment industry during the 1990s a period when the Brazilian economy experienced considerable liberalisation. It focuses on both the innovation sector and the telecom equipment manufacturing firms. Technology capability is measured in terms of the amount of R&D, its content, sources of technology to domestic manufacturing enterprises, the interaction of local enterprises with CPqD and so on. 7. Szapiro (2000), Szapiro and Cassiolato (2003) Assess the impact of liberalisation of equipment manufacturing and the deregulation of telecom services on the innovation system for telecommunications in the country during the period upto the late 1990s. Note: *. Studies available only in English are included here; ** This work was published later on in Source: Own compilation 12

13 I do not undertake a critical review of all the studies presented above. It is clear (from Table 2) that most of the studies, although done independently of each other, are repetitive in terms of their scope and main findings. However from the list of seven, four stand out namely the ones by Hobday (1986 and 1990), Goransson (1993), Mytelka (1999) and Schjolden (1999). Hobday reviews the initiation of indigenous R&D in the country, while Goransson's work traces its progress upto the early 1990s and compares it with similar experiences from India and Korea. Mytelka analyses the maintenance of capability and telecommunications market aspects during this period. Finally, Schjolden's work attempts to critically assess the state of the innovation system and domestic equipment manufacturing industry during the 1990s- a period of liberalisation and privatisation. Specifically, the latter study has attempted to measure, employing a series of well known indicators, the present state of technological capability of the equipment sector. Hobday examines in detail the Brazilian government s attempt to set up, from scratch, a wholly Brazilian R&D facility in digital telecommunications, namely the Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento da Telebras or CPqD, as it is more popularly known. He notes that the establishment of CPqD enabled the Brazilian state to achieve two objectives: first, it became an important centre for the generation of local capability in digital switching systems and thereby, secondly, to improve the state s bargaining power with the MNCs for transferring state-of-theart digital switching technologies at much better terms and conditions than would otherwise have been the case. In fact Goransson s study actually provides us with important evidence to prove this improvement in the relative bargaining power of the Brazilian state.9 It was this relatively strong position that enabled the country to import electronic switching technologies from an MNC for a quarter of the price paid by India for a similar technology. 10 He assesses various technological programmes using what he terms, partial indicators of technological performance, such as financial and human resource inputs, and outputs, including products, patents and technology transfers to industry. 11 Schjolden s study employs similar indicators to measure the state of technological capability of the Brazilian industry during the 1990s. An interesting and unique aspect of Hobday s work is his identification of a number of learning mechanisms that were employed by CPqD to assimilate the new technologies. He shows that CPqD itself had a number of technology collaboration agreements with a variety of institutions 9 However, Goransson (1993) does not make this point. 10 See Goransson (1993). 11 During the period 1976 through 1984, CPqD registered 183 patents in Brazil for six broad types of products or processes and transferred 28 different types of technologies to 17 telecom equipment manufacturing enterprises in Brazil. It is interesting to note that 4 of the 17 firms were affiliates of foreign companies. See Hobday (1986), p

14 and firms, both domestic and foreign, although an overwhelming majority of these were domestic. The laboratory employed five different types of learning mechanisms, namely; (i) learning by searching; (ii) learning by setting up electronic capital goods; (iii) learning by training and hiring; (iv) learning by designing and adapting of product designs; and (v) learning by installing information feedback systems. In fact Hobday s study provides us with a comprehensive overview of the initial build up of innovation capability in the Brazilian telecommunications equipment industry. Goransson makes an important contribution to the understanding of Brazilian efforts at local technology generation and his study is also the first attempt 12 at analysing the relative quest for technological self-reliance in telecommunications technologies by three developing countries, Brazil, India and Korea. The study clearly maps out the changes in the Brazilian telecom sector in the 1950s and then in the 1980s. The main structural change in the 1980s was the establishment of an elaborate administrative structure to implement the import substituting industrialisation strategy. While some of the institutions established, such as the, the Industrial Development Council (CDI), National Institute for Industrial Property (INPI), the Foreign Commerce Board (CACEX), are common across a number of industries, two new institutions - the Secretariat of Informatics (SEI)13 and the GEICOM (the Executive Group for Devices and Materials Industries) 14 - have basically been responsible for the telecommunications equipment industry. The most important of these institutions for innovations in the telecommunications industry is GEICOM. It was founded in 1975 with the objective of reducing the import content of telecommunications and was responsible for determining a nationalisation index. Following detailed consultations with each of the firms and a study of the availability of local components GEICOM determined the amounts of final product that should be imported. Goransson critically examines the specific ways in which GEICOM controlled the import dependence of the industry and shows that lower import dependence actually increased the final price of domestically manufactured switches. However, summarising the evaluation of the Brazilian strategy in telecom, he is of the opinion that major progress has been made in reaching the stated objective of achieving self reliance in technology generation, the telecom sector has been successfully restructured, foreign dependence in terms of imports has decreased, and a functioning R&D environment has been created. Nonetheless, this analysis is not proved right in later years. 12 Later on there was a second attempt at comparing the Brazilian and Korean cases by Mytelka (1999). 13 The secretariat was responsible for drawing up a list of, primarily, electronic products that were to be protected through a policy of market reservation until October See also Botelho, Ferro, Mcknight and Oliveira (1993). 14

15 Basing her analysis on domestic production and imports, Mytelka (1999) showed a deceleration in domestic output and an increase in imports from the late 1980s. 15 She identified two factors as being responsible for this trade-off between imports and domestic production. 16 The first was the slower than expected progress in developing Brazilian telecommunications technology and the second was the impact of the changing global competitive environment on the pricing, production and innovation strategies of large multinational firms operating in the market. Another interesting aspect brought out by some of the studies and especially the one by Mytelka is the relationship between market structure and price levels for digital switches in the country. Although the level of concentration in the digital switching industry increased during the early 1990s compared to the late 1980s 17 there were significant reductions in the price of these systems within the country - prices decreased from an average of US $ 1100 per line in 1989 to about US $ 200 per line in The reasons for this were (i) the introduction of the larger CPqD switches, i.e., Tropico R and Tropico RA; and (ii) the competition from the new entrant to the industry. Finally I consider the study by Schjolden (1999). This study actually takes the Hobday study forward to the 1990s. The study seeks to answer three pertinent questions: ((i) how has technological capability in the Brazilian telecommunications industry changed since 1990? (ii) what are the reasons behind these changes in technological capability?; and (iii) what are the implications of these changes in technological capability for a country's economic development? The term technological capability is defined as 'the ability to use, produce, adapt and develop a new technology'. Further the term is defined both at the sector and the firm level. Schjolden measures technological capability through four indicators: (i) import dependence of the sector (ii) quantum and nature of R&D investments; (iii) quantum of products and patents released from CPqD; and (iv) number of technology agreements between CPqD and the private firms. She then confronts each of these four items with empirical data. On the first indicator, she finds significant increases in imports of telecom equipment during the period. However she does not measure the share of imports relative to total availability nor does she provide clear data on the share of CPqD-developed Tropico switches in the Telebras network, especially over 15 She considers the period 1975 through Mytelka (1999), op.cit, p Based on the data provided in Mytelka (1999, Table 4.5), it is possible to compute four-firm concentration ratio in the digital switching equipment and these have increased from 74 in 1987 to 90 per cent in The increase in concentration was due to the take over of five wholly Brazilian manufacturers by a MNC. 15

16 this period and she does not present disaggregated data on telecommunications equipment imports. The scanty evidence available from the various studies shows that Tropico switches accounted for only about 30 per cent or so of the network during the 1980s.18 This share actually increased, albeit at a very slow pace, to about 32 per cent of the network by 1997 (Melo and Gutierrez, 2002). Despite growing imports, Tropico was able to maintain its share essentially due to the public technology procurement policy of the Brazilian state. This point will be analysed in detail in the fifth and sixth sections of the study. On her second indicator of technological capability, namely the relative investments in R&D (read as investments in CPqD), Schjolden notes 19 that although the absolute investments in CPqD have increased from about US $50 million in 1991 to about US$ 100 million in 1998, they have decreased in relative terms as a percentage of overall investment in Telebras from about 2 per cent in 1991 to about 1 per cent in But as Schjolden herself notes this fall in the relative share in CPqD could easily be explained by the relatively larger investments in network expansion, which took place during the second half of the 1990s. This investment was necessary to improve the image of Telebras before it was privatised in This point will further be elaborated in the next two sub sections. In short, the reduction in the relative share of CPqD in the total investment of Telebras cannot be construed as contributing to the worsening of technological capability especially because the absolute level of investments in CPqD, as explained before, has actually increased during the period. Further CPqD too was turned into a private foundation in 1998 as part of the overall privatisation of the telecommunications sector. Another dimension of R&D investments considered in the study is the content of R&D and the changes that took place during the time. According to Schjolden, CPqD has, since 1991, become more engaged in developing basic technologies with only a few selected applied technologies developed during the period. 18 In fact the combined installed capacity of the wholly owned private sector companies manufacturing Tropico digital switches accounted for only about 27 per cent of the total domestic capacity in these switching equipment. Given the fact that capacity utilisation of these firms was only about 50 per cent, the share of Tropico Switches could not have been higher. Another reason for the lower share of Tropico switches is the fact that only two kinds of smaller Tropico switching technologies were actually developed by CPqD during the period, namely the Tropico (capacity to handle 192 subscribers) and R (capacity to handle 4000 subscribers). The largest of the three, Tropico RA (80, 000 to 100, 000 subscribers) was introduced to the market only during the early 1990s. 19 See, Figures 5.3 and 5.4. of Schjolden (1999), op.cit. 20 The Brazilian Ministry of Communications drew up in November 1995, the Recovery and Expansion Program for Telecommunications and Postal Systems (PASTE). Under this programme various investment plans, including a plan to increase the number of fixed phone lines, was implemented. 16

17 However it is clear that by the early 1990s, CPqD had actually completed its development of the Tropico family of digital switching systems and as Fiorentino (1996) commenting on the scope of R&D activities being conducted at CPqD states, the institution was at that time (namely during the early part of the 1990s) focusing its efforts on the evolution of Tropico technology, aiming to improve its competitiveness in the international market and developing features 21 to meet the demands of the domestic market in Brazil. Thus while continuing to develop the Tropico switches, CPqD was also concentrating on network and service management, and working on projects related to the development of an optical fibre network in the country. Given the nature of R&D programmes and the impending privatisation of both its parent Telebras and CPqD itself, it is not surprising that there might have been a scaling down of its R&D activities during this period. But this scaling down is not tantamount to a decline in the technological capability of the laboratory. The very fact that the Tropico switches continued to maintain onethird of the share of the market shows that this domestic technological capability is very much intact. Thus based on this short survey of the past literature, the following points emerge: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) CPqD has built up considerable innovation capability in conceptualising and designing digital switching systems, especially during the period The developed technology was effectively transferred to domestic private sector manufacturers who began to manufacture and sell these switches to the state owned operating company, Telebras; However, the opening up of the Brazilian manufacturing sector to foreign investments led to the takeover of some of these domestic manufacturing firms by multinational companies. This means that the number of wholly owned Brazilian companies has been significantly reduced, to just one; Despite this increased competition from MNC manufacturers within the country and from imports, the market share for Tropico switches has been maintained; There is a general feeling in the literature that the technological capability of the domestic innovation system has decreased consequent to liberalisation of the equipment manufacturing sector, privatisation of the telecom services distribution segment and the privatisation of the main laboratory itself. However, the quantitative evidence that is used to demonstrate this is not very robust and is open to questioning. 21 During my field research it became evident that towards the latter half of the 1990s, CPqD started working toward the development of switching technologies that leads to the migration of conventional telephony network into a NGN (new-generation network), in which voice and data converge on a single platform. 17

18 It is against this background that the present study on innovation capability of the sector during the period is placed. An important aspect of this period has been privatisation and breaking up of the ultimate final consumer, namely Telebras and the main laboratory. Another important development during this period has been the phenomenal growth of mobile communications and the near saturation of fixed line communication. In order to facilitate my analysis, I start with the main features of the Brazilian telecommunications network, especially during the post privatisation phase. This is followed by a discussion of the privatisation efforts itself. 18

19 3.0. MAIN FEATURES OF THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SECTOR The section is organised as follows: First of all, I outline the current privatised structure of the Brazilian telecommunications sector. This is followed by an analysis of four important dimensions of the sector: (i) growth of investment and capacity; (ii) technological improvements in the network; (iii) phenomenal growth of mobile telephony and the near saturation of fixed telephony; and (iv) structural changes in the telecom industry with the distribution of services accounting for a dominant share of the industry. Brazil is the fifth largest country in terms of area and, with a population of approximately 170 million people; it ranks as the sixth most populous nation in the world. In 2002, Brazil had the largest economy in Latin America, with a GDP of $407.7 billion and an annual growth rate of 2.1 percent. As mentioned earlier Brazil has the largest telecommunications sector in the region. In 2002, Brazil s net revenue for telecommunications equipment and services was approximately $25.28 billion. (AnuarioTelecom,2003). Services accounted for $23.0 billion while telecommunications equipment and software suppliers generated the remaining $2.28 billion. The country s telecommunications industry has undergone a complete transformation since early 1998 when state owned Telebrás (Telecomunicações Brasileiras S.A.) acted as a holding company for 28 operating companies: one long distance operator (Embratel), and 27 companies providing local, inter-state long-distance, and mobile communication services at the state level. Four independent telephone companies provided services outside the Telebrás system, in specific geographical areas, accounting for 9 per cent of all lines in service. The mobile lines were opened to competition in 1997, when companies were licensed to provide B band cellular services in 10 regions in competition with the Telebrás A-band cellular operators. The Telebrás companies were amalgamated into three regional, one long-distance (Embratel), and eight cellular operating companies in early 1998, prior to being privatised in July This process, as seen earlier in Table 1, was one of the single largest privatisations in the world and the Brazilian government netted a premium of about 64 per cent over the combined minimum bid price. Immediately after the privatisation was concluded the Brazilian regulator, ANATEL, initiated plans to offer mirror concessions to operate in competition with the four former fixed operators. The structure of the fixed telecommunications distribution segment in Brazil before complete liberalisation in 2002 is outlined in Table 3.

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